1.
Why did you want to serialise Zom-B?
It’s just the way it presented
itself to me. I never think of the market when I write – I always do what seems
best for the story. With Zom-B it always
existed in my mind as a series of short, sharp-placed books, almost every one
of which would end on a cliffhanger. Because of that, I hoped anticipation
levels for each book in the series would be high, so I wanted to deliver them
quicker than normal. It was an experiment, as just about all of my work is.
2.
You must have a lot going on with each book in the Zom-B coming out at three-month intervals. How did you plan out the
writing of the series to make sure you could fit everything in?
I started writing the books
three or four years before the first one was due to be published. I knew that
bringing a book out every three months was going to be extremely testing, both
for myself and my publishers, and I couldn’t have done that without having first
drafts of all the books in the bag before the first one hit the shelves. By doing
that, I had at least two or three years to work on every book, and I was able
to go back and re-write and edit the earlier books in light of things that
happened in the later entries, thus tying everything together nice and tightly,
without too many glaring errors!
3.
I’m a fan of the big cliffhangers in the series. What’s the best cliffhanger
you’ve ever read?
I used to read lots of comics,
where cliffhangers are much more commonplace, so I read lots of great examples
in the likes of 2000AD and The Eagle when I was a kid. In terms of
books, I think Dickens came up with some of the best cliffhangers – it’s easy
to forget now that the books are presented as complete novels, but they were
serialised when they were first released, and readers had to wait between
chunks. There was one near the end of A
Tale of Two Cities that I think left everyone at the time waiting for the
next instalment with baited breath!
Quick-fire
round!
4.
Literary idol?
Stephen King, for both the
quality of his work and pushing himself so hard to create such an extensive and
varied cannon of work.
5.
Favourite word?
Thwack!!
6.
Current read?
Dead
of Night, by
John Maberry
Make sure to follow the rest of
the tour and pick up a copy of Zom-B
Mission which came out yesterday!
Darren
Shan is appearing at Cambridge Literary Festival on Saturday 5th April
at 4pm. The Festival runs 1st-6th April, for the full programme visit www.cambridgeliteraryfestival.
Tickets: www.adcticketing.com, 
01223 300085, or in person at ADC Theatre, Park Street, Cambridge CB5 8AS
01223 300085, or in person at ADC Theatre, Park Street, Cambridge CB5 8AS
Sophie
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